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Java Power Tools - New from O'Reilly: Improve Your Development Process with the Best Open Source Tools

Sebastopol, CA--All true craftsmen need the best tools to do their finest
work, and programmers are no different. Java Power Tools (O'Reilly, US
$59.99) by John Ferguson Smart covers thirty open source tools designed to
improve the development practices of Java developers in any size team or
organization. Each chapter includes a series of short articles about one
particular tool of the software development lifecycle (SDLC) including
build systems, version control, unit testing, quality metric tools and
more. In fact, it is the equivalent of thirty short reference books in one
package.

"The book is about the tools and techniques that I us and teach in my
daily work," says Smart. "These tools are a great way to improve your
code quality and coding productivity all round, and are worth talking
about. As far as I've seen, there are no reference books that cover a full
range of tools and techniques in this way. They tend to specialize in one
particular area."

Smart points out that are a lot of ways you can improve your development
process, in very practical and down-to-earth terms, but people don't
always have the time or energy to investigate them. "This book aims to
show people what tools and techniques exist, how and where they are useful
in practice, and to put people in a position to choose the tool that suits
them best," he says.

No matter which development method your team chooses, whether it's Agile,
RUP, XP, SCRUM, or one of many others available, Java Power Tools
provides practical techniques and tools to help you optimize the process.
The book discusses key Java development problem areas and best practices,
and focuses tools that can help increase productivity in each area of the
development cycle, including:

Build tools including Ant and Maven 2

Version control tools such as CVS and Subversion, the two most prominent
open source tools

Quality metrics tools that measure different aspects of code quality,
including CheckStyle, PMD, FindBugs and Jupiter

Technical documentation tools that can help you generate good technical
documentation without spending too much effort writing and maintaining it

"Development teams are increasingly being asked to do more with less. To
write more flexible and imaginative applications, with more added value
for the users, but on dwindling budgets," says Smart. "But many
organizations are slow to adopt the tools and techniques that could help
them streamline their development projects. Developers have little time to
research better approaches, but they can't afford to wait too long. A team
trained in and equipped with modern development tools and techniques has a
clear competitive advantage over a team using more traditional techniques,
no matter what technologies are being used. It's like comparing going into
battle in a modern tank or on horseback. To stay competitive,
organizations need to learn how to work smarter and use whatever tools and
techniques are necessary to support the development teams to get the job
done efficiently. That's where a book like this can help."

John Smart is a freelance consultant specializing in Enterprise Java, Web
Development, and Open Source technologies, currently based in Wellington,
New Zealand. Well known in the Java community for his many published
articles, John helps organizations optimize their Java development
processes and infrastructures and provides training and mentoring in open
source technologies, SDLC tools, and agile development processes. John is
principal consultant at Wakaleo Consulting, a company that provides
consulting, training and mentoring services in Enterprise Java and Agile
Development.

For more information about the book, including table of contents, index,
author bio, and samples, see the catalog page for Java Power Tools

About O'Reilly

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